Stayin' Alive

Scrapbooker, keeper of photoalbums, I am not.  This blog is probably the best record of my family's life, sad to say.  Not that I am much of a cyber socialite.  I don't have a Twitter account and the only reason I check Facebook daily: I don't want to miss any new pictures posted of my adorable baby niece.

Working has sorted my priorities almost automatically.  There's not much TV, or shopping that isn't absolutely necessary.  The definitions of "cleaning my house" and "cooking dinner" have changed.  I miss the amount of baking I used to do.  I confess that I love being knee-deep in the kinds of projects I'm in at work. I miss speaking by phone often to friends and family.

I miss the kind of writing I used to do.

Keeping a blog or two, even in the miserable fashion in which I've done so lately, preserves a last arterial connection to a few things that are still important to me, subsequently oxygenating those parts of me I don't wish to die. For one, there is still a part of me out there for those friends who want to know what's going on in my life.  I still read my friend's blogs.  Partly because I can do that at 6am or 11pm, when they wouldn't appreciate the phone call but when I actually have a few minutes to spare.  Partly because my friends' blogs are like fabulous new and free literature - so many of my friends are good writers and interesting women.  Partly because I really miss them and it feels as if I've had a nice chat over tea after reading their posts.

On Tuesday evening, Jeff stole me away to experience one benefit of connection to private universities.  Syracuse University sponsors lecture series in which well-respected writers, artists, etc. visit and faculty and students can come listen for free.  Jeff loved Jonathan Frazen's The Corrections and Freedom and wanted to hear him speak.  I said I wasn't sure I had the time to accompany him.  He countered with an offer for dinner out included, and provided an excuse of, "Consider this professional development!"  I responded that Franzen is a fiction writer while I write things like grants and curriculum .... ?   Jeff said, "If we are ever going to live on Keuka Lake, our chances rest on your writing the great American novel."  So while our chances of owning a house on Keuka Lake are slim to none, I was nonetheless persuaded to join my husband in attending the lecture (and eating Pad Thai).

Franzen was thoroughly entertaining and I enjoyed hearing the way his mind works, especially around writing.  He did succeed in making me want to walk away from the career I am loving and have already invested an unbelievable amount of everything in, to take up writing.  Not a move I'm really going to make as I have student loans to pay as well as stakes in important projects that I sincerely believe can change everything for a lot of economically disadvantaged people in Syracuse.

But I don't want to lose the connection to that part of me that, never mind reality, dreams of being an author of consequence.  In my book group we are going though an interesting read entitled Soul Cravings. The section we are in now is called Destiny, and we have had a lot of deep discussions about dreams.  Dreams can keep us stuck in the past, but they also keep us moving towards the future.  When we stop dreaming, we start dying.  We are meant to aspire, to dream.  One of my friends put forth the question "What did you all want to be when you grew up?"

Guess what I wanted to be?

Well, I wanted to be a vet for a little while too until I realized that birds would be my patients too, not just dogs and cats.  So long, future vet career.

There are items on the priority list whose new location at the bottom does not disturb me.  In fact, I wonder if I am a healthier, more balanced person because of it.  Others, I keep reaching to swoop up from their propensity to stealthily slip further down.  Because if those things fall away and no longer have a place in my life, then I think I might start dying.